Hello sir, greetings of the day.
As per your query, if your neighbour files a divorce case against her husband who is an army officer on the grounds of neglect, then that case does not stand a chance. According to Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, under section 13(1), it lays down the nine fault ground of divorce. It includes adultery, desertion, insanity, conversion, renunciation, cruelty, venereal disease, presumption of death and leprosy as valid grounds for seeking divorce. As your neighbour wants to give divorce on the grounds of neglect, she cannot do so. It is because there is no ground for neglect. Her case cannot even be shelved under desertion. It is because, desertion is defined like the permanent abandonment of one spouse by the other spouse without any reasonable justification and without his or her consent. Here the key factor that remains is without any reasonable justification. But as your neighbour’s husband is in army, he is in charge, in national duty. That cannot come under ‘without any reasonable justification’. So there cannot be any valid grounds for justification.
Hope this solves your query.
Regards
Nirali Nayak
Law Student